[hazel]

I want to plug a book that I've been reading. It's called Understanding Unix/Linux Programming by Bruce Molay and it's unlike any Linux book I've read before. All the others are basically how-to-do-it guides (the best I've found so far are two from the O'Reilly stable: Running Linux and Unix in a Nutshell). Most of the stuff from LDP and sites like this is similarly problem-oriented. But, believe it or not, some of us newbies want to know how Linux actually works (I can't be the only one, can I?). That's what this book does. It uses simple C example programs to explain things like utmp and wtmp accounting, how the file system works internally, what named pipes and sockets are for, how signals work and so on - everything you always wanted to know and were afraid to ask! Even if you don't speak C (and I don't) you can usually understand enough to get the point. I think it plugs a gap - it does for me anyway.

[scientica]

Thanks for the tip, sounds like a good book (I wonder if I can find it here in sweden)
Hehe, it's not just newbies who wonder what makes the kernel tick, most/anyone who is the least curious about how things work does The best thing about linux (and OSS) is that, you're not forced to engade in RE (Reversed Enginering, which is, at least afiak, fully legal in the EU when one is *only* looking at the code (well, dis-assembly), imo RE software is just like opening up the radio to see how it works --- take note: RE is not cracking (though crackers do RE), and I donnot by any means encourage to illegal activites(cracking)-- this said, since some people tend to think "RE = cracking", not usually on linuxforums but on asm ones many do :/)
let's se where was I, yeah, since linux is OSS the source code is there, which means it's better documented than disassembly (well, unless you're an asm coder who decodes opcodes as if it was the matrix )

btw, C/C++ is one of the most used programming languages, and one can wonder why. Most will say that's it's because there's no better alternative, but I think the "truth" is that it's design is the key to it's success. IMO (and I'm a brain damaged (asm) coder) C/C++ is quite easy to understand, even when one hasn't learned it, the code is often quite easily read as english (not exacly "BASIC english" but almost), eg:
"if ( A == B ) { callSomeFunciton(); }" can be read "if A is equal to B [then/{] callSomeFunction(); [end of if block/}]". Also, a quite fun off-topic story, one of my calss mates who took a C++ prigramming class, I told him before that learning any programming langauage gives brain damages (I gave my self as an prime example :P), and the other day, when we were doing a Physics laboration (on induced current), when writing on the conclusions, he wrote one the answer sheet (translated to english)"if the north end of a magnet is inserted from right || the south end of a magnet is pulled to the left ..." (note the logicall-or )

[tfk]

"Understanding the Linux kernel" by Bovet & Cesate(O'Reilly) would be a good addition. It is very interesting to know how the kernel works. It covers the memory addressing and management, process structures, signals, vfs, I/O devices, the Ex2/3 filesystem, etc, and it's worth reading. After consuming it, you know very, very much about the way Linux works.

-LC